I went back to graduate school because I wanted to avoid being a professional, to try to piece together a life that would let me avoid the tenure race and full-time teaching.

I think history is only ever invisible when it abets your sense of self, your desires, your ambitions, when it carries your life along in a kind of frictionless way.

Whenever I go to New York I try to soak up as much live music as I can, including as many nights at the opera as I can manage.

I'm not sure I can articulate any principles behind the decisions about what to cut and what to keep.

I'm not sure any narrative model has been more important for me than Benjamin Britten's chamber operas.

My first months in Sofia were a time of intense disorientation: I had never been to that part of the world before; I could barely speak the language; everything seemed strange to me.

Being a high school teacher was wonderful, but unsustainable: I needed a way out.